The Roman Bridge between Dolni Vadin (Bulgaria) and Grojdibodu (Romania) presents all the available data on the Roman bridge over the Danube which connected Dacia and Moesia at this point. The toponyms Vadin and Grojdibodu themselves mean ‘ford’, a crossing over water, in this case over the Danube. There have been no archaeological excavations at the feet of the bridge but the author has been able to propose positioning, scale and full reconstruction on the basis of a survey of existing remains, known road alignments, old maps and drawings as well as comparison with better-known parallels. The book also includes a catalogue of small finds deriving from the area of the bridge.

This bridge has been ignored for centuries primarily due to the absence of any mention of it in ancient sources, literary or otherwise. It was probably eclipsed by the fame of the bridge from Drobeta, which was constructed by Emperor Trajan between the two Dacian wars, and by the bridge from Sucidava-Oescus which was built later, in the time of Emperor Constantine the Great. Additionally, the bridge is located in a rather obscure place, hardly accessible in the modern era. This work restores this river crossing to its proper significance.

About the Author
DOREL BONDOC is an expert archaeologist at the Museum of Oltenia, Craiova, Romania. He obtained a PhD in Ancient History (Roman Archaeology) from the University in Bucharest in 2004. Dorel is a director of the archaeological research projects on the sites of Cioroiu Nou, the fortress of Legio VII Claudia, and Racarii de Jos, the Roman auxiliary fort. Over time he has published many articles and studies, as well as several books.

While one might say that the prehistory of the Adriatic was always in transition, the rhythm of change was not always the same. On several occasions, a series of changes over a relatively short time period resulted in dramatic transformations. Three crucial episodes of change marked the later Adriatic prehistory. The first one, which took place around year 6000 BC, was a transformation of subsistence strategy, transition from hunting and gathering to farming. The second one was a social transformation that played out in the third millennium BC, when for the first time the power of individuals was clearly expressed by material culture. The third episode, inclusion into the classic Mediterranean civilization, coincided with the end of prehistory in the Adriatic region.

During all of those episodes, travel and connectivity with distant lands played an exceptionally important role, and certain places gained particular importance due to their unique geographic location. Palagruža is among the most prominent such places, its importance being out of all proportion to its physical size. Adriatic prehistory cannot be told without mentioning Palagruža, and prehistory of Palagruža cannot be understood without knowing Adriatic prehistory. Due to its strategic position in the very center of the Adriatic Sea, due to the mystery born of distance and isolation, due to its wild and spectacular landscape, Palagruža indeed is a special place. A reflection of its specialty is an unexpected abundance of high-grade archaeological evidence, dating precisely from the three aforementioned periods marked by radical change.

About the Author
STAŠO FORENBAHER is Senior Research Advisor at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, Croatia. He studied archaeology at the University of Zagreb (Croatia), and received his PhD from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas (TX). His research interests cover Mediterranean Prehistory with a focus on the Adriatic, and include transition to farming, formation of early elites, archaeology of caves, and lithic analysis. He has excavated at many prehistoric stratified cave sites in the eastern Adriatic, including Pupićina Cave in Istria, Vaganačka Cave in Velebit Mountain, Grapčeva Cave on the island of Hvar, and Nakovana Cave on Pelješac Peninsula. His current fieldwork is focussed on the excavation of Vela Cave on the island of Korčula.

The papers gathered in this volume explore the economic and social roles of exchange systems in past societies from a variety of different perspectives. Based on a broad range of individual case studies, the authors tackle problems surrounding the identification of (pre-monetary) currencies in the archaeological record. These concern the part played by weight measurement systems in their development, the changing role of objects as they shift between different spheres of exchange, e.g. from gifts to commodities, as well as wider issues regarding the role of exchange networks as agents of social and economic change. Among the specific questions the papers address is what happens when new objects of value are introduced into a system, or when existing objects go out of use, as well as how exchange systems react to events such as crises or the emergence of new polities and social constellations. One theme that unites most of the papers is the tension between what is introduced from the outside and changes that are driven by social transformations within a given group.

About the Editors
DIRK BRANDHERM studied Archaeology, Classics and Social Anthropology at the universities of Münster, Edinburgh and Freiburg. Most of his work has been in European Bronze and Iron Age archaeology, with one focus on metalwork production and depositional practices. He currently holds a position of Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland.

ELON HEYMANS studied archaeology at the University of Amsterdam and at Tel Aviv University. He completed his PhD in Tel Aviv on the early history of money in the eastern Mediterranean Iron Age, and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University. His focus lies on the archaeology of Greece and the southern Levant, and he is particularly interested in the social, political and historical context of early money use.

DANIELA HOFMANN has obtained her PhD from Cardiff University and is currently Junior Professor at Hamburg University, Germany. She has published extensively on funerary archaeology, as well as the figurines and domestic architecture of the central European Neolithic, but she is also interested in instances of structured deposition and in spheres of exchange.

The Roman imperial hoard from Gruia, Romania (in the former Roman province of Dacia) is among the largest ever discovered in that part of the Roman Empire. 1,509 silver coins ranking from Vespasian to Gordian III were accidentally discovered whilst digging in a private garden. This book presents a fully described catalogue of each of these coins, photographs included. A comparative analysis with other similar hoards throughout the Roman Empire reveals both general and specific hoarding patterns during the period.

The authors attempt to discover whether such an amount of silver coins could represent the wealth of an individual by looking at prices and salaries around the time the hoard was buried. Some possible reasons for why the hoard was concealed—and never recovered—are presented through an analysis of hoard distribution in the provinces of the Middle and Lower Danube, and the history of the area.

An aspect of particular interest emphasized in the book is the presentation of so-called ‘weird’ coins, meaning those pieces that have been minted with various errors, either deliberately or by mistake: engraving errors, coin-die malfunction, plated coins etc.

About the Authors
CRISTIAN GAZDAC is a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Art History of the Romanian Academy in Cluj-Napoca. As Assoc.Prof.Habil at the University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Faculty of History and Philosophy, he teaches classes on the Roman Economy and Numismatics and the Analysis of Military Conflicts in Antiquity. Since 2014, he supervises PhD theses at the Doctoral School of Security Studies within the same university. Starting with 2017, he is part of the team in charge with the research project “Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire” with the University of Oxford (Director, Prof. Christopher Howgego). He is the editor and the main author of the monographic series “Coins from Roman Sites and Collections of Roman Coins from Romania” (13 volumes).

MARIN NEAGOE is a researcher and the keeper of the numismatic collection in the Museum of the Iron Gates Region, Drobeta-Turnu Severin (Romania). He has a large experience as a field archaeologist covering the periods from Prehistory to Middle Age. Among his most important excavations are the Severin Chester (2011-2012) and the amphitheatre near the auxiliary fort of Drobeta (2013-2017). His recently defended PhD thesis is an archaeological and numismatic monograph on the Chester of Severin and its hinterland during 13th-16th centuries.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction; Conditions of discovery; The denominations; The hoard structure; The mints; The hoard value; The reason for the burial and non-recovery of the hoard; The “weird” coins

At the margins of the great Indo-Buddhist kingdoms of Sriwijaya, Majapahit and Malayu, tribes lived in forests, mountains, plateaus and engaged in interaction with these better-known kingdoms. From Bondowoso (East Java) to Toba (North Sumatra) through Sukabumi, Kuningan, Lampung, Pasemah, Minangkabau and Jambi, a common heritage can be sensed through the shared set of beliefs based on the worship of ancestors and spirits of Nature.

Exchanging resources and services with their neighbouring Indo-Buddhist kingdoms, indigenous people who acquired goods soon increased in status, resulting in greater competition within their original community. In this context of acculturation, the rise to prominence of local chiefs prompted the need to build megalithic monuments to bury the dead and honour, commemorate or communicate with ancestors. In societies of oral tradition these stones, rough or cut, punctuate the landscape to transmit the memory of men and social structures from one generation to another.

The great diversity of shapes, and the exact place in the local cosmology of these megalithic monuments, demonstrates the immense variety of human groups in the Archipelago: there are sarcophagi, dolmens, jar (kalambas), standing stones, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic statues, stone cup holes (dakon) and seats stones. However, their fate is linked to the Indo-Buddhist kingdoms; whereas in Java, in Sumatra (central and south) and in Sulawesi (central: Lore Lindu), building of megalithic monuments ceased as soon as the kingdoms showed signs of extinction.

But the later arrival of European traders and missionaries in the islands of Sumba, Flores, Nias, North Sumatra (Toba) and Central Sulawesi (Toraja) triggered a similar phenomenon. Today, despite massive conversions to Catholicism and Protestantism in Nias, Sumba and Toraja, this tradition is still alive. Ethno-anthropological studies of these three regions (stone pulling, construction of monuments, treatment of the deceased and funeral ceremonies) provide a unique chance to complement the archaeological perspective on megalithic monuments abandoned for several centuries in the rest of the archipelago.

About the Author
DR TARA STEIMER-HERBET, an archaeologist based at the University of Geneva, is a specialist in megalithic monuments of the Middle East. She took the numerous photographs documented in this book during her stay in Indonesia between 2010 and 2013.

Estudios para la configuración de las facies cerámicas altoimperiales en el Sur de la Península Ibérica aims to further explore the economy and trade in the South of the Iberian Peninsula during the High Roman Empire. And it does, as far as possible, by applying modern methodologies and techniques of archaeological research on the analysis and study of ceramic contexts in several market places or consumption centres located in the area, with special attention to the ceramic facies predominantly characterized by the presence of fine pottery. Increasingly, the examination of the composition of local ceramic contexts in the South of the Iberian Peninsula points towards a complexity whose interpretation, until a few decades ago, had been biased by the presence of wares imported from other Mediterranean regions as a result of the intense roman trade of the period. Thus, exploring outside the traditional approaches in ceramics involves, for example, raising in a certain way and beyond the anecdotal level, the relevance of the phenomena of imitation in pottery vessels.

About the Editors
DR PABLO RUIZ MONTES has a doctorate in History from the University of Granada and is a postdoctoral researcher linked to the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Granada. His research focuses on the analysis of ceramic facies of Roman times in the Baetica province, and on the study of technology traditions and production processes, particularly in Red Slip wares, in the Western Roman world. Also, in past years, he has developed his research in Italy, at the University of Siena and in archaeological sites such as the Roman colony of Cosa (Ansedonia).

DR Mª VICTORIA PEINADO ESPINOSA has a doctorate in History from the University of Granada. She has worked as associate researcher for both the University of Granada and the University of Perugia. Her line of research has focused on the analysis of the material culture in Roman times, especially common ware pottery. Her works have contributed to better understand these ceramics both in the South of the Iberian Peninsula and in Central Italy. Currently, she combines teaching with archaeological research, and she is involved in several projects studying the Roman Baetica.

DR Mª ISABEL FERNÁNDEZ GARCÍA is Professor of Archeology at the Department of Prehistory and Archeology at the University of Granada. One of her main areas of expertise and focus of her research is the analysis of the production and marketing structures in pottery workshops from Roman times, with special emphasis in the Baetica province. She is a specialist in pottery productions in Hispanic terra sigillata.

The significant body of stone and flint axe-heads imported into Britain from the Continent has been poorly understood, overlooked and undervalued in Neolithic studies, particularly over the past half century. It is proposed, in this study, that the cause is a bias of British Neolithic scholarship against the invasion hypothesis and diffusionist model, and it is sought therefore to re-assess the significance accorded to these objects. The aim is to redress the imbalance by re-focusing on the material, establishing a secure evidence base, and exploring the probable conditions in which these often distinctive items made their way to Britain. The narrative presented here rests upon the argument that imported axe-heads came into what is today called Britain as objects of considerable significance. Specifically, they were items of high symbolic value that played a crucial role in fostering particular ways of thinking about, and addressing, social identity in the Neolithic period. These issues are the context for the study, whose main objectives are the close and detailed cataloguing of relevant material, and a documentation of the investigative work needed to establish the credentials of each artefact.

About the AuthorKatharine Walker is a prehistorian who specialises in the Neolithic of northwest Europe. She is Visiting Research Fellow at Bournemouth University, 'Ecademy' Project Officer at the New Forest Centre in Lyndhurst, and a freelance lithics and stone axe specialist. She studied at the Universities of Bristol, Cardiff, and Southampton where she completed a PhD in 2015. Her current research interests focus on materials and material culture, and she has also published on the first metalwork and the origins of social power in The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe (2015). She is an active Committee Member of the Implement Petrology Group, as well as Editor of their newsletter Stonechat.

Worlds Apart Trading Together sets out to replace the outdated notion of ‘Indo-Roman trade’ with a more informed perspective integrating the new findings of the last 30 years. In order to accomplish this, a perspective focusing on concrete demand from the ground up is adopted, also shedding light on the role of the market in long-distance exchange. Accordingly, the analysis conducted demonstrates that an economically highly substantial trade took place between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean in the 1st–6th cen. CE, altering patterns of consumption and modes of production in both India, South Arabia and the Roman Empire. Significantly, it can be documented that this trade was organised at the centres of demand and supply, in Rome and India, respectively, by comparable urban associations, the transport in-between being handled by equally well-organised private networks and diasporas of seagoing merchants. Consequently, this study concludes that the institution of the market in Antiquity was able to facilitate trade over very long distances, acting on a scale which had a characteristic impact on the economies of the societies involved, their economic structures converging by adapting to trade and the market.

About the AuthorKasper Grønlund Evers holds master’s degrees in History from Lancaster (UK) and Copenhagen, as well as a PhD from the latter. He has previously published a monograph on the Vindolanda Tablets and the ancient economy.

This book provides a comparative study of the earliest urban civilisations of the Maya lowlands and the Greek mainland. The focus lies on the art styles of the Late Preclassic lowland Maya and Mycenaean Greece. Building on research from previous comparative studies, the approach used here seeks to combine more traditional iconographic approaches with more recent models on metaphor and the social agency of things. By comparing Maya and Mycenaean art styles through the three aspects of metaphor, semiotics and praxis, their differences and similarities are made clear. The book shows art to have played a more active role in the development of the earliest urban civilisations, rather than passively reflecting economic and political trends. In that way, the social role of art provides a key to understanding the relations between the different factors in the development of the two societies, as they played out at different temporal and geographical scales. To understand this, the notion of distinct Maya and Mycenaean ‘material worlds’, involving both materials and ideas, is proposed, with consequences for models about the earliest urban civilisations in general.

In ancient times, the first communities, societies and civilizations in the Iberian peninsula, according to archaeological evidence, began to develop following a progressive local evolution tempered by the significance of outside contacts. In order to reconstruct our history, resorting to ancient poets, we strive to distinguish reality from myth in the pursuit of a bond of certainty between the data provided by historical and literary sources and the excavated remains. Greek epics, based on the Illiad and the Odyssey, are the basis for the first speculations that link societies all along the Mediterranean coast, from east to west, with a common thread. However, how many times have we been told about mythical places, such as cities of great splendour and unique cultural progress? Did the land which Plato called Atlantis and Adolf Schulten linked to Tartessos truly exist? These answers may never be revealed (they are not at the forefront of research interests nowadays); for the time being, they are lost into a mythical and legendary world. Nonetheless, they remain alive over time.

In this book, Dr Vyron Antoniadis presents a contextual study of the Near Eastern imports which reached Crete during the Early Iron Age and were deposited in the Knossian tombs. Cyprus, Phoenicia, North Syria and Egypt are the places of origin of these imports. Knossian workshops produced close or freer imitations of these objects. The present study reveals the ways in which imported commodities were used to create or enhance social identity in the Knossian context. The author explores the reasons that made Knossians deposit imported objects in their graves as well as investigates whether specific groups could control not only the access to these objects but also the production of their imitations. Dr Antoniadis argues that the extensive use of locally produced imitations alongside authentic imports in burial rituals and contexts indicates that Knossians treated both imports and imitations as items of the same symbolic and economic value.

Lost and Now Found: Explorers, Diplomats and Artists in Egypt and the Near East edited by Neil Cooke and Vanessa Daubney. xx+295 pages; illustrated throughout with 42 plates in colour. 344 2017. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784916275. £32.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784916282. £15.83 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £32.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

Long distance travel and mass tourism are not recent phenomena. This collection of papers from the 2015 ASTENE Conference in Exeter demonstrates that over the centuries many individuals and groups of people have left the safety of their family home and travelled huge distances both for adventure and to learn more about other peoples and places. Some travels were to help establish trade routes, while others were for personal pleasure and knowledge. Many of those who travelled have left little or no record but in a few cases their travels can be determined from the brief encounters they had with other travellers who noted these chance meetings in their journals and diaries, which they later used to inform and write for publication accounts of their own travels and impressions.

The 18 papers in this rich and varied collection include: finding the lost diary of a member of the Prussian scientific expedition to Egypt of 1842-45 that was hiding in ‘plain sight’ among other books; the illustrated journal of a Croatian travelling through Egypt, Nubia and Sudan in 1853-4 and the hardships endured; the competition between Officers of the East India Company to find the fastest trade routes through Syria between India and the Red Sea; and identifying the Dutch artist who made paintings of Constantinople and later travelled to India before joining the Bombay Artillery as a Lieutenant-fireworker. All 18 papers are the product of hours of careful research by their authors among original manuscripts and books tracked down in archives, libraries and private collections around the world.

Stone Vessels in the Near East during the Iron Age and the Persian Period(c. 1200-330 BCE) by Andrea Squitieri. iv+284 pages; illustrated throughout with 50 plates in colour. 318 2017 Archaeopress Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology 2. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784915520. £45.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784915537. £15.83 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £45.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

This book focuses on the characteristics and the development of the stone vessel industry in the Near East during the Iron Age and the Persian period (c. 1200 – 330 BCE). Three main aspects of this industry are investigated. First, the technology behind the manufacture of stone vessels, the tools and techniques, and how these changed across time. Second, the mechanisms of exchange of stone vessels and how these were affected by the changing political landscape through time. Third, the consumption patterns of stone vessels in both elite and non-elite contexts, and how these patterns changed through time. The aim is to evaluate how the formation of new regional states, occurred in the Iron Age I-II, and their subsequent inclusion within large-scale empires, in the Iron Age III and Persian period, transformed the Near Eastern societies by exploring how the stone vessel industry was affected by these transformations. For the period and area under analysis, such a comprehensive study of stone vessels, covering a wide area and connecting this industry to the broader socioeconomic and political landscapes, has never been attempted before.

About the Author:Andrea Squitieri obtained BA (2006) and MA (2008) at the University of Torino (Italy) in Archaeology of the Near East, with a final dissertation on alabaster vessels in the Mediterranean during the 1st millennium BC. He continued his academic career at the University College, London, where he completed the PhD in 2015 with a thesis on stone vessels in the Iron Age and the Persian period. Andrea has participated in excavation projects in Turkmenistan (Parthian Nisa), Sardinia (Tharros), Syria (Tell Afis), Turkey (Tell Atchana), Israel (Tell es-Safi/Gath) and in Iraqi Kurdistan (Gird-i Bazar and Qalat-i Dinka). Since 2015, he has been a member of the Peshdar Plain Project directed by prof. K. Radner of the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (Germany). He is also involved in the project for the study of the stone materials from Shahr-i Sokhta (east Iran), held in the Museum of Oriental Art of Rome (Italy).

In this study of the Portuguese intervention in the Manila Galleon Trade, Etsuko Miyata explores its history through a new approach: the examination of Chinese ceramics. The excavated Chinese ceramics from Mexico City shed light on the nature of Portuguese involvement in this huge sixteenth-century maritime trade network, and also help to clarify the relationship between the Portuguese and the Chinese merchants, who were considered to be rivals.

The book analyzes the change of types and quantity of excavated Chinese ceramics from Mexico City over time. It references the trade depression during the mid seventeenth century, when the ceramic finds from Mexico City suddenly decreased, and the trade between Asia and America seemed to slow down; and it seeks to understand the effect on people from various social backgrounds in both regions.

The study also considers the Atlantic coastal trade in Spain; this featured Chinese ceramic finds from Galician excavation sites. The author postulates a hypothesis that these ceramics did not come into Spain through the Manila Galleon Trade or via Atlantic trade with America, but from Lisbon where the coastal trade route powered a large amount of diverse commerce.

In the year 19 BC, Roman legions arrived in Nijmegen with the aim of conquering the Rhenish territories from the local populations. In addition to the legionaries themselves, the Roman army required a regular provision of staple supplies in order to keep such a war machine in top condition. The archaeological evidence for this provision is a myriad of organic remains (i.e. seeds, bones, pollen) as well as ceramic containers such as amphorae.

One of the first military camps at Nijmegen, together with that on the Hunerberg, was Kops Plateau. This timber fortress – the most northerly military site of the Julio-Claudian period – dating from 12 BC to AD 69, has provided an extraordinary amphora assemblage. At a time when most Roman roads were still only projects, this distant military outpost received amphora products from all over the Mediterranean basin – from Palestine to Greece in the east to Baetica and northern Africa in the west as well as from the Italian core. In addition to amphorae, Kops Plateau also provided a wide repertory of regional vessels whose contents are unknown.

The amphorae from Kops Plateau represent a singular example of Roman military supply in northern Europe at a very early date. Their analysis sheds light on trading routes in the Atlantic regions, and from Gaul to Germany; indeed also on the Claudian invasion of Britain.

Croatia at the Crossroads: A consideration of archaeological and historical connectivityProceedings of conference held at Europe House, Smith Square, London, 24–25 June 2013 to mark the accession of Croatia to the European Union edited by David Davison, Vince Gaffney, Preston Miracle and Jo Sofaer. iv+264 pages; illustrated throughout in colour and black & white. 2016 . Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784915308. £40.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784915315. £15.83 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £40.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

Croatia has a unique geographical and historical position within Europe, bridging central and south-east Europe. From the Pannonian Plain to the southern Adriatic maritime landscape, interconnectedness flows through Croatia’s history. This dynamic past is increasingly being reflected upon by a new and exciting generation of Croatian scholars who are firmly embedded within a strong national tradition of archaeology but who also look outward to draw insights into the nature of material culture they encounter in Croatia and Croatian identity itself.

Croatia at the Crossroads (24-25 June, Europe House, London) provided the opportunity to reflect upon such interconnectedness and Croatia’s historic place within Europe. This event typified the desire of Croatian archaeologists to engage with such matters on an international level and to situate their scholarship within broader regional dynamics. Following the foundation of the new Croatian state, the opportunities for new forms of engagement have grown. This has stimulated thinking regarding both approaches to archaeology and the potential cultural cross-fertilisation that has resulted in Croatia’s rich archaeological and historical record. This has led to in new, exciting understandings of archaeological material, and this was revealed in contributions to the Croatia at the Crossroads conference.

The papers published here arise from the exceptionally interesting presentations and discussions held in London at the conference. Each of them takes Croatia’s particular interconnectedness in terms of social and cultural relationships with the wider region as the starting point for exploring issues across a broad chronological range, from human origins to modernity. Within this, contributors pick up on a variety of different fields of interconnectedness and forms of interaction including biological, cultural, religious, military, trade, craft and maritime relationships. In many ways, these papers represent opening conversations that explore ways of thinking about new and established data sets that are entering Croatian scholarship for the first time. They also act as a set of complementary discussions that transcend traditional period and national boundaries. We hope that by bringing them together the volume will provide an insight into current trends in Croatian archaeology and stimulate fruitful discussions regarding future directions.

Materials, Productions, Exchange Network and their Impact on the Societies of Neolithic EuropeProceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress (1–7 September 2014, Burgos, Spain) Volume 13/Session A25a edited by Marie Besse and Jean Guilaine. vi+82 pages; illustrated throughout in black & white. 305 2017. Available both in print and Open Access. Printed ISBN 9781784915247. £24.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784915254.

Scholars who will study the historiography of the European Neolithic, more particularly with regards to the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, will observe a progressive change in the core understanding of this period. For several decades the concept of ‘culture’ has been privileged and the adopted approach aimed to highlight the most significant markers likely to emphasise the character of a given culture and to stress its specificities, the foundations of its identity. In short, earlier research aimed primarily to highlight the differences between cultures by stressing the most distinctive features of each of them. The tendency was to differentiate, single out, and identify cultural boundaries. However, over the last few years this perspective has been universally challenged. Although regional originality and particularisms are still a focus of study, the research community is now interested in widely diffused markers, in medium-scale or large-scale circulation, and in interactions that make it possible to go beyond the traditional notion of ‘archaeological culture’. The networks related to raw materials or finished products are currently leading us to re-think the history of Neolithic populations on a more general and more global scale. The aim is no longer to stress differences, but on the contrary to identify what links cultures together, what reaches beyond regionalism in order to try to uncover the underlying transcultural phenomena. From culturalism, we have moved on to its deconstruction. This is indeed a complete change in perspective. This new approach certainly owes a great deal to all kinds of methods, petrographic, metal, chemical and other analyses, combined with effective tools such as the GIS systems that provide a more accurate picture of the sources, exchanges or relays used by these groups. It is also true that behind the facts observed there are social organisations involving prospectors, extractors, craftsmen, distributors, sponsors, users, and recyclers. We therefore found it appropriate to organise a session on the theme ‘Materials, productions, exchange networks and their impact on the societies of Neolithic Europe’.

How is it possible to identify the circulation of materials or of finished objects in Neolithic Europe, as well as the social networks involved? Several approaches exist for the researcher, and the present volume provides some examples.

This book presents an overview of the results of the research project DESPAMED funded by the Spanish Minister of Economy and Competitiveness. The aim of the book is to discuss the theoretical challenges posed by the study of social inequality and social complexity in early medieval peasant communities in North-western Iberia. Traditional approaches have defined these communities as poor, simple and even nomadic, in the framework of a self-sufficient economy that prioritised animal husbandry over agriculture. This picture has radically changed over the last couple of decades as a result of important research on the archaeology of peasantry and the critical analysis of ninthand tenth-century documentary evidence that show the complexity of these rural societies. These new records are discussed in the light of a new research agenda centred on the analysis of the emergence of villages, the formation of local elites, the creation of socio-political networks and the role of identities in the legitimation of local inequalities. The nine chapters of this book explore the potential and the limits of the archaeological record to tackle social inequality in rural communities. Those considerations have a wider theoretical and methodological potential and are applicable to other regions and chronologies. The different chapters explore local societies through different methodologies and approaches such as food, settlement patterns, social exclusion, consumption patterns and social practices.

In addition, the book introduces some of the most relevant topics studied currently by Iberian Medieval archaeologists, which are not always accessible to an international audience.

The Roman road system was the main service infrastructure for administrative management, economic operation and defense of the empire.

Along with roads, a key element of this infrastructure were the resting places more or less directly linked with vehiculatio / cursus publicus, or with a system run or controlled by the state to ensure essential services (safe stop, supplies, maintenance of horses and other animals) to those traveling on behalf of the public administration.

New archaeological research and new studies on a rich and diverse body of extra-archaeological sources have recently reported the attention of the international scientific community on the subject of parking places, within the more general theme of the smaller settlements in the Roman world and their evolution in late antiquity and early medieval times.

This volume brings together contributions from scholars from three different generations, starting from different sources and methodological approaches, converging towards the construction of an area of common reflection on a theme still relatively underdeveloped. The goal is to lay the foundation for a deepening of the interdisciplinary debate and to develop new research projects.

Chronological Developments in the Old Kingdom Tombs in the Necropoleis of Giza, Saqqara And AbusirToward an Economic Decline during the Early Dynastic Period and the Old Kingdom by Leo Roeten. xiv+144 pages; illustrated throughout in black & white. 280 2016 Archaeopress Egyptology 15. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784914608. £30.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784914615. £15.83 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £30.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

At the end of the 6th dynasty the 500 year old established order of the Old Kingdom fell apart, which, according to the interpretation given to various contemporary literary sources, started a period of social unrest and economic decline.

The magnitude of the economic investment bestowed by the members of the higher social strata on the monuments that would be the abode for their after-life leads to the hypothesis that an economic decline could also manifest itself in the dimensions of the various architectonic elements of these monuments.

The dimensions of the tombs have been chosen as the subject of this study. The preliminary part of the study is performed on the tombs in the necropolis of Giza. The results of the study are compared with the same measurements in the necropoleis of Saqqara and Abusir. The conclusion is that the economic decline started already at the early dynastic period and not as a result of the caving in of the Old Kingdom.

An interesting ‘side-effect’ of the study is that the dimensions of the tombs can serve as a method to check a dating that has been proposed based on other aspect of the tomb.

Archaeopress is delighted to be launching a new journal in October 2016 with an editorial board headed by John Bintliff (Edinburgh University, U.K. and Leiden University, The Netherlands). The scope of this journal is Greek archaeology both in the Aegean and throughout the wider Greek-inhabited world, from earliest Prehistory to the Modern Era. Thus we include contributions not just from traditional periods such as Greek Prehistory and the Classical Greek to Hellenistic eras, but also from Roman through Byzantine, Crusader and Ottoman Greece and into the Early Modern period. Outside of the Aegean contributions are welcome covering the Archaeology of the Greeks overseas, likewise from Prehistory into the Modern World. Greek Archaeology for the purposes of the JGA thus includes the Archaeology of the Hellenistic World, Roman Greece, Byzantine Archaeology, Frankish and Ottoman Archaeology, and the Postmedieval Archaeology of Greece and of the Greek Diaspora.

This Open Access sampler has been designed to act as an introduction and taster to the scope and style of this new journal. It includes one complete paper and two review articles as well as full contents listings for Volume 1 and subscription information (including some special offers).

The papers collected in this book correspond to the lectures held during session B34 of UISPP conference in Burgos (June 2014) where the presentation of multidisciplinary works were encouraged. The main goal of bringing together specialists from various disciplines (humanities and natural sciences) was to debate, from different perspectives, the networks in raw materials and technological innovation in Prehistory and Protohistory, involving investigation topics typical of archaeometry: archeometallurgy, petrography, and mineralogy.

This work seeks to understand the process of monetization within the economy of the Galicians and Asturians and the cultural ways in which the phenomenon occurred. Numismatic remains are studied in depth, found in four of the roads crossing the northwestern territory of the Iberian peninsula in Roman times; the tracks studied, as referenced in the Itinerary of Antonino, were XVII, XVIII, XIX and XX.

All the coins discovered were imported, and so it was possible to mark precisely where the greatest influx of individuals and materials came from, as well as areas and zones of different speeds of monetization and, thus, Romanization.

Since its conception in 1998, the Iron Age Research Student Symposium (formerly ‘Seminar’) has provided postgraduates in the archaeology of Iron Age Britain an opportunity to present their current research in a friendly atmosphere. During the course of both formal seminars and informal outings (such as field trips, dinners, and the traditional pub quiz), the Iron Age Research Student Symposium (IARSS) gives students the ability to discuss their research with colleagues and peers, in addition to a number of outstanding lecturers and professors in Iron Age studies. Previous proceedings volumes (Davis et al. 2006; Humphrey 2003; Sterry et al. 2010), also offered participants the prospect of publishing their seminar paper. As a result, IARSS has become a fixture in the development of new academics while at the same time contributing fresh perspectives to Iron Age dialogues.

This proceedings volume, organised to reflect three general themes (migration/interaction, material culture and the built environment), accomplishes two things. First, it provides an accessible survey of emerging concepts, ideas, methods, and fieldwork that will shape future study of the Iron Age. Second, it is an outline, not just of what the 17th IARSS accomplished, but also of a broader scheme envisioned by the organisers for future events in this Symposium series. It is the (perhaps wide-eyed) expectation of the organisers that the IARSS can and should expand to offer further opportunities to research students of the Iron Age, and they firmly hope that this volume aids in the promotion of this annual Symposium, as well as the ideas of the contributing authors.

Access Archaeology:Our newest imprint is designed to make archaeological research accessible to all and to present a low-cost (or no-cost) publishing solution for academics from all over the world. Material will range from theses, conference proceedings, catalogues of archaeological material, excavation reports and beyond. We will provide type-setting guidance and templates for authors to prepare material themselves designed to be made available for free online via our Open Access platform and to supply in-print to libraries and academics worldwide at a reasonable price point. Click here to learn more about publishing in Access Archaeology.

Late Prehistory and Protohistory: Bronze Age and Iron AgeProceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress (1–7 September 2014, Burgos, Spain) Volume 9 / Sessions A3c and A16a edited by Fernando Coimbra, Davide Delfino, Valeriu Sîrbu and Cristian Schuster. xii+222 pages; illustrated throughout in black and white. All papers in English, abstracts in English and French. 234 2016. Available both in print and Open Access. Printed ISBN 9781784912970. £38.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784912987.

1. The Emergence of warrior societies and its economic, social and environmental consequencesProceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress (1–7 September 2014, Burgos, Spain) Session A3c edited by Fernando Coimbra and Davide Delfino

Several works have been dedicated to the aim of warfare in European Bronze Age, by a point of view of bronze technology and archaeometallurgy. The present volume wants to be a short and actualized contribution to the study and interpretation of warrior societies, through a point of view of the marks of the first warfare in Europe, its causes and its consequences in all the intelligible evidences, both from a point of view of material culture, of landscape, of human behavior and artistic manifestations.

There is already a ‘history’ with not only different, but sometimes contradictory opinions regarding the role played by the Aegean-Mediterranean area in the evolution of the peoples who lived in continental Europe during the age of Bronze and Iron, including burial customs. The organizers of this session proposed, through ongoing communication and the discussions that followed, to obtain new data on the influences and Aegean-Mediterranean imports found in the graves, and the possible movements of groups of people who carried them. The main area of interest focused on the ‘roads’ and the stages of their penetration, but also considered feedback from peripheral areas. The session aims to highlight the role of the southern imports in the evolution of local communities’ elites and their impact on the general development of the populations of continental Europe, the possible meanings of their deposit in the burials. Analysis of these phenomena over wide geographical areas (from the Urals to the Atlantic) and large chronological periods (the third-. first millennia BC) allow the identification of certain traits as general (eg., the continuity and discontinuity), or particular (eg., the impact of imports and southern influences on communities of different geographical areas).

This volume brings together papers presented at a conference in Athens in December 2012 as a part of the Syrian-Norwegian research project Palmyrena: City, Hinterland and Caravan Trade between Orient and Occident. They reflect international research and fieldwork that was going on until the outbreak of the Syrian civil war: Interaction between pastoralism and urban societies in the Bronze Age (K. Hesse), relationship between the merchants and the Palmyrene elite (M. Sommer), the caravan route from Palmyra and the market for the goods (M. Gawlikowski), mechanisms of trade along the Silk Roads from China (M. Żuchowska), a Palmyrene diaspora in Rome and the Mediterranean network (T. Terpstra), road systems between Palmyra and the Mediterranean (P. Mior), Palmyra compared with other large cities in the East (C. Bührig), the use of magnetometry, satellite photo and radar to reveal covered structures in the city (R. Linck), a historiographical analysis of M. I. Rostovtzeff’s impact on the study of religious cult (P. Alipov), a critical discussion of the excavations of the “Hellenistic” town in Palmyra, and finds of glass (C. Ertel and R. Ployer), the ceramic material from Palmyra (C. Römer-Strehl), a new house tomb in the northern necropolis (K. Saito), vessels from banquet scenes (S. Miyashita), the genetic composition and health of the population based on osteoarchaeological and dental analysis (T. Nakahashi, K. Yoshimura, S. Wu, T. Nakahashi, S. Saito), cereal crop production in the hinterland of Palmyra based on a pollen-analysis and radiocarbon dating from a mudbrick (K. Krzywinski, J. Krzywinski).

About the Editors:Jørgen Christian Meyer is professor in Ancient history at the University of Bergen. From 2008 to 2013 he was head of the joint Syrian-Norwegian project, “Palmyrena: City, Hinterland and Caravan Trade between Orient and Occident”. His research interests are the relations between Palmyra and the hinterland, and the connections between the Mediterranean world and the Indian Ocean and Central Asia.

Eivind Heldaas Seland is associate professor of premodern global history at the University of Bergen. He was member of the project “Palmyrena: City, Hinterland and Caravan Trade between Orient and Occident”, and is head of the research project “Mechanisms of cross-cultural interaction: Networks in the Roman Near East” (2013-2016). His research interests are the Near East and the Indian Ocean in the preslamic period, including Palmyrene trade.

Nils Anfinset is associate professor in Archaeology at the University of Bergen. He was member of the project “Palmyrena: City, Hinterland and Caravan Trade between Orient and Occident”. His research interests are pastoral nomadism, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and early Bronze Age in the Middle East, and metallurgy.

Water as a morphogen in landscapes/L’eau comme morphogène dans les paysagesProceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress (1–7 September 2014, Burgos, Spain) Volume 4/Session A14 edited by Sandrine Robert and Benoit Sittler. viii+104 pages; illustrated throughout in black and white. Papers in English and French. Available both in print and Open Access. Printed ISBN 9781784912871. £26.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784912888.

These proceedings include eight presentations. Two of them focus on the role played by the river axes and the geography of river basins as factors of circulation and settlement of Palaeolithic hunterviii gatherers on the European scale (Francois Djindjian) and in the surroundings of the Jura Mountains (Gérald Bereiziat and Harald Floss). José Javier Piña Abellán describes how the central valley of the River Jabalón (Ciudad Real, Spain) was peopled in the course of the second millennium B.C., and how the inhabitants still maintain a close link to the hydrography. Frederic Cruz and Christophe Petit provide new insights into the organization of the princely residences’ territories of the late Hallstatt era in the North-Western region of the Alps, taking into account their relationship to the environment, and especially the distance from the valleys. Ana Lucia Herberts documents how river crossings and related drainage structures played a crucial role in setting cattle trails in Brazil to drive the cattle from their pasture lands to the major market places in remote cities. A 3-D modelling using LiDAR altimetry has been used by Sabine Schellberg, Benoît Sittler, and Werner Konold to reconstruct water meadows that were used in historical times in the upper Rhine Valley. In their paper, Sandrine Robert and Hélène Noizet develop, as an example illustrating resilience, how an ancient meander of the River Seine, which was filled in Antiquity, still dictates the layout of the network of the streets of Paris. Lastly, Martin Orgaz and Norma Ratto addressed the social construction of landscapes by relating Inca sites to the Tinogasta region (Catamarca, Argentina) rivers whose visual features (the colour red) may be regarded as a factor that governed the selection of sites.

In Pursuit of Ancient Cyrenaica...Two hundred years of exploration set against the history of archaeology in Europe (1706–1911) by Monika Rekowska, translated by Anna Kijak. x+274 pages; illustrated throughout in colour and black & white. 223 2016. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784913205. £45.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784913212. £15.83 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £45.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

This work examines travellers’ accounts of their journeys to Cyrenaica, focusing in the main on an analysis of these accounts within the context of their significance to topographic surveys of the region. The dates given in the title symbolically mark their beginning and end. The starting date (1706) is that of the first journey across Cyrenaica that led to the writing of the first account extensive enough to be the subject of detailed analysis. The end date (1911) marks the beginning of the Italian occupation of Libya, when responsibility for archaeology was entrusted to the greatest Italian specialists of the period. Travelogues were replaced by scholarly studies featuring both well-known and newly discovered sites, while amateur descriptions and drawings were replaced by professional analysis and documentation.

The main protagonists of the book are people who travelled to Cyrenaica or stayed there for some time, people of a variety of ages and sorts: physicians and an engineer, priests, soldiers and diplomats, artists and adventurers, scholars and archaeologists. They differed considerably in their education, personalities, itineraries and objectives of their journeys, their wealth and personal circumstances. What they did have in common was great curiosity and courage, love of adventure and the ability to survive in harsh and dangerous conditions – compensated for by unusual discoveries – and, finally, an interest in ancient ruins, which for the purpose of this book is what makes their accounts valuable.

Reviews:

"This is another excellent contribution to the growing number of historiographic accounts of archaeological discoveries in the Mediterranean."– Susan Kane (Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Vol 5, No 1, 2017)

The Bell Beaker phenomenon is one of the most fascinating horizons in European Later Prehistory, due to its vast geographical distribution, the intrinsic value of some of the artefacts comprising the Beaker package, or its supposed links to certain kinds of ritual ceremonies as shown by the frequent deposition of Beaker items in burial contexts. At present, the idea that the Beaker package is best interpreted as a symbol of power common to socially-prominent individuals by the mid-to-late third millennium BC is widely acknowledged by scholars in this field. From this point of view, the Beaker phenomenon is seen as the archaeological evidence representing an ideology which was shared by a number of prehistoric societies geographically scattered throughout much of Western and Central Europe, or, more specifically, was only shared by elite individuals within these territories.

The strategies employed by these individuals to attain such privileged statuses, however, are poorly known. Therefore, in the framework of the XVII World UISPP Congress, held in September 2014 in Burgos (Spain), a session entitled ‘Analysis of the economic foundations supporting the social supremacy of the Beaker groups’ (B36) was organised by this volume’s two editors. The session focused mostly on examining this issue at a European level, and less on the study of the Beaker package itself, as a way of looking at the economic foundations that helped these individuals attain their higher social statuses.

The proximity of Beaker sites to natural routes of communication highlights the importance of exchange networks through which people, objects and ideas may have circulated through Europe during this time. The Amesbury Archer in southern England is one of the best examples of interaction within Beaker territories. Having said this, considering that Beaker pots themselves were not exchanged over long distances, attention must be paid to other mechanisms of diffusion. The present volume comprises the papers presented at this session suggesting that Beaker groups may have controlled certain products and technologies.

Cited by al-Muqaddasī in c.985 and then by al-Idrīsī in c.1150, the medieval port of Sharma was discovered in 1996 at the extremity of the Ra's Sharma, 50km east of al-Shiḥr on the Ḥaḍramawt coast of Yemen; it was excavated in 2001-2005. This unique site was actually a transit entrepôt, a cluster of warehouses probably founded by Iranian merchants and entirely devoted to the maritime trade. It knew a rather short period of activity, between around 980 and the second half of the 12th century, which may be acknowledged as the Sharma horizon. Excavations proved that this settlement experienced six occupation phases, which are closely related to the political and economic developments in the region at that time. The material is mainly transit merchandises, small objects, resins, glass and pottery; some of the ceramics were locally made, in the nearby kilns of Yaḍghaṭ, but most (70%) were imported, from all parts of the Indian Ocean from China to East Africa. The typo-chronological study of this closed assemblage brings very precise information on the dating and evolution of the various types recorded, and the historical analyse sheds new light on the history of the Islamic maritime trade in the 10th to 12th centuries.